A SCHEME has proved so successful in recruiting new teachers it has had to expand its operation to take on even more.

Teaching schools train the next generation of educators, and there are currently five operating in the district.

They work as part of an alliance of primary schools, nurseries, special schools, secondary schools, academies and free schools, together with Sheffield Hallam University.

Members of Bradford Council’s children’s services scrutiny committee have been given an update on the progress of the scheme.

Since the initiative started in 2014, it has recruited a total of 105 new teachers.

To become a teaching school, an educational facility has to have an outstanding Ofsted rating.

The schools help improve others by recruiting and training new entrants to teaching, providing training courses, supporting school leadership and recruiting and training outstanding head teachers and subject leaders.

Christian Bunting, head of teaching schools, told the committee: “We hear about declines in applications for people to become teachers, but we find it is not the case. We run initial teacher training, and we have had so many good applications of people wanting to train to teach with us that we were over-recruiting. We had to increase our allocation.

“Last year all but three of our trainees got jobs in Bradford-district schools.”